


Those Potter Kids Are at it Again!

by ladyroxanne21



Series: Growing Up Potter [18]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Parties, Pranks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 03:03:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8233867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyroxanne21/pseuds/ladyroxanne21
Summary: All these pranks are driving Headmistress McGonagall batty!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neil_minyard10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neil_minyard10/gifts).



> Hey, what do you know? I was able to finish up and post something for my birthday after all :-D  
> A ***BIG*** Thanks to neil_minyard10 for giving me not one but *two* excellent suggestions for pranks :-D

“It doesn't matter what we say, dad! You all are determined to believe we did it!” James protested. He and his brothers and sisters were now Third Years. They were all – along with Teddy and Daisy – in the Headmistress' office facing an inquisition by McGonagall, their dad, and Draco.

“Yeah!” The rest of them cried out in agreement.

“So rather than ask us if we did it, why not just test our wands?” James suggested.

“If you don't find anything, then you _have_ to believe we're innocent!” Scorpius added. The fourteen of them promptly held out their wands for inspection.

Harry looked at McGonagall, who sighed in frustration even as she gestured for Harry to take the wands. Harry cast Prior Incantato on all the wands, and when none of them showed anything more sinister than the hexes taught that day in Defense Against the Dark Arts class, Harry had no choice but the give the wands back.

“This only proves that the last spells any of you cast were normal,” Draco pointed out. “Any of you could have still created that disturbingly realistic swamp in the great hall during lunch, James. Scorpius.”

“But I didn't!” Both boys protested earnestly.

“I think you're all biased against us because of who we're related to,” Rose pointed out haughtily. “You think that the fact that our Uncle George and his twin happened to create this prank – it automatically means that we have to be responsible for casting it this time. But if you were to _really_ think about it, what happened is common knowledge. _Anyone_ could have decided that it sounded funny and cast it. Worse! I think the whole school knows that we're continually being blamed for all these pranks, and so they probably figure that they don't have to worry about getting caught. They probably think you won't even bother to look for a culprit beyond the fourteen of us.”

“You don't even think it could be Anaya, Vihaan, or Hunter!” Lily added, referring to Padma and Parvati's younger two, and Pansy's son with Draco – who were all first years now.

“Anaya and Vihaan are both Hufflepuffs and while Hunter is a Ravenclaw, I really don't think he's capable yet of casting such complex spells,” Harry explained.

“Oh wait,” Scorpius muttered with a light glare. “So you're trying to say that Albus, Amelia, and Remus can't be the culprits because they're all Hufflepuffs too?”

“As if Hufflepuffs _can't_ commit pranks simply because they are cuddly little workaholics?” Rose growled softly.

Harry was ready to give them all detention for having the ability to talk circles around him. “Well... did you?”

Albus rolled his eyes. “Dad, Aunt Hermione has explained to us many times that we should never answer accusatory questions because even if we are innocent and answer honestly, saying anything at all gives people ground to accuse us of lying.”

Harry looked to the ceiling and muttered under his breath: “Damn law experts...”

“So, unless you have actual proof that we did something wrong, I'd suggest that you let us go,” Indira challenged, her arms crossed stubbornly over her chest.

McGonagall sighed. “Well, she's right about that much, at least. We have no proof. Whoever  _did_ do it managed to obscure their magical signature.”

Draco frowned. “Surely that's a bit too advanced for a dozen Third Years, a Fourth Year, and a Second Year.”

“And three First Years,” Harry added with a shrug, admitting that they were as likely to be involved as any of them.

Draco chuckled. “Next year, your son with Susan will arrive and you'll officially have all your kids in Hogwarts, then the year after, Hermione's girl and Pansy's girl will come here and our house will officially be empty!”

“I wonder if Molly and Arthur felt the same sense of loss when Ginny entered her first year and their house was suddenly child free for the first time in almost two decades,” Harry murmured.

“Good grief! There's _more_?” McGonagall blurted out incredulously.

Harry chuckled. “To be fair, Hermione and Pansy's girls are Ron's.” He turned to Draco. “And I suppose the house won't be entirely empty since Luna will still have her twins.”

“Perhaps, but she and Rolf are always off on adventures, so it's not like they're ever home anyway,” Draco stated with a shrug.

McGonagall decided that they were getting off topic, so she sighed and rubbed her temples. “Alright. I think the fourteen of you can go back to class.”

“Yes Headmistress,” they murmured respectfully before filing out of her office. When they were at the bottom of the winding staircase – far enough away that the gargoyle statue couldn't overhear them, Rose hugged Albus and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“That was brilliant Al! Using those boring lessons from my mum to evade confirming or denying guilt! I think we should all memorize that exact speech,” she finished with a soft laugh.

“So,” Hugo cut in before anyone else could say anything. “Tomorrow during our bath and morning meeting, I have a topic to discuss. I was reorganizing some old files for detention a while back, and I came across a couple of pranks that our Grandfather and his friends pulled when they were in Fourth or Fifth Year. They were brilliant! And since they are all recorded in semi public files, we'll have plausible deniability.”

“That sounds exciting!” Daisy exclaimed softly.

“Wouldn't it be perfect if we set it up – whatever it is – to happen while we're all gone for Christmas hols?” Amelia asked with a grin. “I'd like to see them blame us then!”

The rest of them all laughed and passed out hugs before splitting up and heading to their classes.

 

***

 

McGonagall let out a long sigh of relief when the Hogwarts Express left for Christmas hols and the Castle was devoid of all Potters. As always, there were a few students staying for various reasons, but the Headmistress was fairly sure that her holiday would be a quiet one. She didn't even feel the need to add a splash of scotch to her tea.

So it came as quite a shock when – in the middle of the traditional Christmas feast – the enchanted ceiling suddenly changed from a beautiful wintry sky to an enlarged copy of Van Gogh's Starry Night. This wasn't technically against any school rules, so she didn't have to rush about finding the culprit. That said, the enchantments on the ceiling were  _powerful!_ It shouldn't have been possible to influence them!

She exchanged a baffled look with Flitwick. The tiny man shrugged and mouthed:  _Maybe the Potter kids_ aren't _behind this_ .

With a sigh, she had to admit that he had a point. Not only would it have been next to impossible for children their age to interfere with the charms on the enchanted ceiling, but they weren't even  _here_ . Thus, she at least had to give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

***

 

“Alright, I have an idea!” Sai exclaimed mere minutes after they'd all settled into their bath. Most of them were still too busy scrubbing up to want the meeting to start, but they looked up at Sai anyway.

“What's that?” Remus asked curiously.

“Remember how we enchanted the ceiling last Christmas?” Sai asked, though he was sure no one had forgotten.

“Merlin's snowy dandruff! That was a right pain!” Rose groaned.

“How'd you do that anyway?” Hunter asked, but was shushed by Sai – who wanted to finish his suggestion.

“Well, since Halloween is coming up at the end of next month, I think we should pull a prank at the feast,” Sai informed them. “We should make everyone sprout horns and a tail and have their hair turn different colors!”

“Opposite House colors!” Anaya burst out excitedly, casting a look of adoration at her older brother.

“That's brilliant!” Vihaan added in agreement.

Destin – Harry's youngest child, born from Susan a year after Anaya, Vihaan, and Hunter were born – cleared his throat. He was still looking around the Prefects' bathroom a bit curiously. He was also still amazed to be in his first year at Hogwarts, and loved that he had been sorted into the same house as his favorite older sister, Pandora. Slytherin seemed like the best house to him.

“Excuse me?” Destin interrupted the excited chattering. “How _do_ you manage to get away with all these pranks?”

“First of all, you have to make a vow that you will _never_ admit to knowing anything about any pranks,” Indira insisted with a mild glare.

“I promise on Salazar Slytherin's grave that I will never admit to knowing anything about any pranks pulled by us,” Destin swore, his right hand in the air.

“Good!” Hugo stated with a fond smile. “The key is to never lie about them either. If asked directly if you pulled a certain prank and you actually did, remind Dad – or whomever is accusing you – that it doesn't matter what you say if the person is determined to believe you are guilty.”

“Neither confirm nor deny. Smart,” Destin admitted, his inner Slytherin loving this.

“Also, we always have at least three or four of us who aren't involved so that if pressured, they can deny doing it and be telling the truth,” James explained. “And it rotates. For example, Scorpius, Sai, Remus, and I weren't involved in the swamp in the great hall last year, thus when Dad confronted us and made it sound like he believed that we did it, we were able to tell him that we didn't and it was true.”

“That's so Slytherin!” Destin cried out, impressed.

“We're Potters before we're Houses,” Pandora informed him, ruffling his hair and making him purr happily from the attention.

“Except for me, Teddy, and Hunter,” Daisy excluded with a shrug.

“Aww Daze, we're Potters too, even if we have different last names,” Teddy told her, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

“Yeah!” Hunter agreed. “I mean it's not fair otherwise. Pearl is my sister and a Potter, but I'm not just because my parents decided that I should be a Parkinson-Malfoy instead?”

“Family is family, no matter what name they bear,” Lily stated matter of factly.

“Can we get back to my horns and tails?” Sai asked impatiently.

“How are we going to do that?” Amelia asked with a frown.

“I have an idea,” Rose blurted out, to no one's surprise. “I can reformulate the Polyjuice potion to give everyone those specific characteristics. I mean, there are ingredients that make a person sprout horns or tails, and there are others that change hair, eye, and skin color – so it shouldn't be too hard to combine them with the transformative properties of Polyjuice to –”

“That's genius!” Indira interrupted without meaning too. “And best of all, it's harmless! It'll wear off all on its own after an hour!”

As those good at potions debated the various ingredients and effects, those who hated potions groaned and covered their ears.

“Wait!” Anaya cried out. “Aren't we forgetting something important! Even if we manage to _make_ a potion, _how_ do we get it into all the students?!”

Amelia snorted. “The same way we enchanted the ceiling, of course.”

“Huh?” Anaya asked in confusion.

Amelia slung an arm around her younger sister. “I keep forgetting that we tried to keep the details away from you three in case Dad tried to accuse you of anything. So here's what we're going to do; on Halloween, we'll 'borrow' dad's invisibility cloak and put the potions – and there'll have to be different ones for each table –”

“Duh!” Hugo scoffed. “Opposite House colors!”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Amelia growled. “We'll either have to sneak into the kitchen and spike all the pumpkin juice –” 

“Which would be easiest,” Rose interjected.

“Or we'll have to do the invisible hover thing again,” Amelia finished.

“Which is why the enchanted ceiling was such a pain!” Rose exclaimed with a small growl of frustration. “Maintaining a Mobilicorpus Charm on an invisible person takes an enormous amount of focus!”

“Rose is just mad because we had to cast a silencing charm on her in case Pearl dropped her,” Remus muttered with an amused grin.

“Which she actually did!” Rose yelled indignantly.

“For a second!” Pearl protested haughtily. “I caught you and had you back up to the ceiling before you got anywhere near to crashing!”

Rose harrumphed but couldn't argue.

“Wait!” Daisy roared, holding her hands up and waving them. “I still think we're forgetting something important! How do we make sure that the prank isn't discovered after only two or three kids drink their juice and grow horns?”

“Good point,” Scorpius admitted as he thought this over. “Hmm... A charm to delay the effects?”

“Alright,” Teddy stated in the tone of a leader. “We're going to have to break this down into parts. Rose is obviously going to be working on the potion. Scorpius and Hugo handling the charms? Who wants to be under the cloak? I think it should be someone small so that they can't accidentally expose a foot or something.”

“I can do that,” Hunter volunteered.

“Actually, maybe we should take turns – especially if we have to do it in the great hall,” Daisy suggested. “That way, no one of us is 'missing' for a noticeable amount of time, and the one casting the Mobilicorpus Charm can change with each table too, to prevent magical fatigue.”

“We'd better choose who is going to be uninvolved right now so that they can cast silencing charms. That way, they won't know the exact details if asked,” James reminded them.

With surprisingly little argument, the parts were divided up and the innocent members made a point of knowing nothing else.

 

***

 

The yearly Halloween feast was well underway when Lily skipped over to the Staff table. Her siblings – directly and indirectly – were all standing on the benches of their house tables to watch her. When she arrived at Harry's side, she gave him her biggest and most innocent looking grin.

“Daddy, we were wondering if we could have a party in your Quarters tonight? You know, just our family.” Lily batted her eyelashes at him prettily, which made him suspicious.

“ _Why_...?” He drawled with narrow eyes.

“Because you and Draco won't mind if we spike the punch so long as we drink responsibly,” Lily reminded him.

“Well...” Harry murmured as he thought this over.

Suddenly, Daisy shrieked as if she was being murdered. She pointed at the person across from her with an expression of horror, and actually tumbled off the bench onto her scrawny rump. Her pointing called everyone's attention to an important fact; everyone at the Slytherin table now had dark red hair, horns the color of aged bones, and shiny black, whip-like tails.

Next, shrieks sounded from the rest of the tables because all the Gryffindors currently had vibrant green hair, along with the same horn and tails. Ravenclaws all had yellow and black striped hair – reminiscent of bees – and Hufflepuffs sported vivid blue hair. It wasn't really the hair that terrified people, it was the horns and tails, but even that couldn't scare them for long. Soon, the students were babbling excitedly, wondering who had done this and how.

Lily went wide eyed and stared at her father. “Daddy... you're hair is white...”

Each of the Professors now had different colored hair. Draco's was purple. McGonagall's was bright pink. Hagrid's was blindingly orange. And they also had tails and horns. McGonagall sighed heavily and rested her head in her hands.

“When I find who is responsible for this egregious travesty that is my hair, I'll string them up in the dungeon for the foreseeable future!” Draco vowed, seething in fury.

McGonagall pointed at him. “Then I charge you with finding the culprit! However, try to calm down, Professor Malfoy. I cannot allow you to harm any of the students.”

Draco was softly growling under his breath. Harry patted him on the shoulder. “It's not so bad.”

“They ruined _my hair_!” Draco roared.

“I don't think it's ruined,” Harry murmured with a loving smile. “You look rather sexy,” he added in a whisper dropped directly in Draco's ear.

“I do?” Draco asked curiously.

“Yes,” Harry confirmed with a tiny grin. He even dared to prove it by kissing Draco very quickly.

“Well...” Draco preened jut a little, and then cleared his throat. “I still plan to catch whoever is behind this.”

“Good luck!” McGonagall called out, surreptitiously pouring a bit of scotch into her tea.

“So...” Lily droned as she tugged on her father's sleeve. “Yes to the party?”

Harry sighed and shook his head at the cheek. But she looked positively adorable with horns and a tail. Even more so with her black and yellow striped hair. He grinned and ruffled said hair affectionately.

“Sure thing, stinger!” 

With a whoop of joy, she threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him tight. Soft cheers from the house tables let him know that the rest of his kids were also overjoyed at the prospect of a private party. Lily skipped back to the Ravenclaw table to chatter excitedly about the party with Rose and Scorpius.

To Draco's deep dismay, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't figure out who was behind his purple hair. To his relief, it wore off after an hour. Careful tests proved that it was the result of a potion slipped into all their drinks, but the potion itself gave no clues as to who had brewed it. The best he could guess was that it had to be a Seventh Year because it was a complex – N.E.W.T. Level – potion. He could now clearly see why McGonagall was so frustrated by all these harmless pranks. They were devious!

 

***

 

It was soon a certain week in February in which a dozen Potter kids added a number to their age. This year, the Fourth Years were turning 15. Like the previous years that they'd attended Hogwarts, they had something little planned – a private family party in their dads' quarters. They were running into a problem though...

It was crowded enough in the rather spacious Professors' rooms having a party for the 18 kids that belonged to the family. Adding in any friends at all soon made the situation impossible. Thus, 12 adorable kids were giving their dad pouty lips and pleading eyes as they begged him to obtain permission from McGonagall to host the party somewhere bigger.

“I'll ask, but I make no promises!” Harry capitulated with a reluctant groan.

Since it was a Friday and he only had until the next night to obtain permission from the Headmistress before the party was scheduled to occur, Harry took a deep breath and gathered up his courage that night during dinner.

“Er, Minerva... I was wondering if I could ask a favor...” Harry murmured nervously. Even after working as a Professor for a couple of years, he still felt like a schoolboy himself when talking to her.

“Yes Harry?” McGonagall asked with interest.

“I wondered if we could use one of the bigger classrooms to host a party tomorrow,” Harry explained.

McGonagall smirked knowingly. “Yes, I imagine that there are too many kids involved to fit comfortably in your quarters this year. I don't see why not, so long as the classroom is cleaned up after you're done with it.”

Harry exhaled in relief. “Thanks!”

McGonagall leaned a bit closer to him. “I'm rather surprised that you didn't mention Ginny's surprise.”

“Ginny's surprise?” Harry asked in confusion.

“Oh? So you don't know,” McGonagall stated with a mischievous grin. “Well, in that case, I won't tell you.”

“Wait, what's going on?” Harry wondered with a frown.

McGonagall simply shook her head and maintained a serene smile. Harry looked to Draco to see if he knew anything, but a tiny shake of the head assured him that no, Draco was just as clueless. They didn't have to wait long to find out; just as dinner was winding down, the doors to the great hall burst open to admit Ginny Weasley striding down the main aisle.

She was wearing her Harpies uniform and her hair was mussed as if she had just come from a game. In truth, she had. She spotted her daughter Lily and gave her two thumbs up.

“We won!” Ginny announced with a grin.

Lily wasn't the only one to squeal and cheer. A good quarter or more of the students from all tables broke into raucous clapping and cheering. When Ginny arrived in front of the head table, she smiled and nodded her head to McGonagall, waved at Draco, and winked at Harry. Then she turned to face the gathering of students.

“As you all might have heard, my daughter and most of her brothers and sisters have their birthday this week. So, I asked myself: Ginny, what do I get for the girl who basically has everything she could ever want? And the answer was fairly simple. Me! _And_ my entire team.” Ginny waved her hand out dramatically to indicate the still open doors.

A moment later, the rest of the Holyhead Harpies strutted into the hall, waving around at all the students.

Ginny continued. “An epic rematch between my team and the Potter kids! Kids, I suggest that you get together and decide who is going to play what position and who will be the alternates. We start the match in 20 minutes and will play as long as it takes. See you on the pitch!”

Lily squealed so excitedly that everyone thought she was going to burst into fireworks on the spot. She also jumped up and down several times before throwing herself into Scorpius' arms, squeezing him tight. The rest of the Potter kids hastily formed a huddle – which they cast a bunch of privacy spells around – so that they could discuss strategy.

“I find it mildly disturbing how quickly and easily they cast those spells,” McGonagall murmured to Harry as Ginny and her team sprinted out of the hall.

Harry was stroking his chin in thought. “Yeah... And they aren't even on the run from Voldemort...”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Now I am definitely done with these kids pulling pranks, so I have no idea what to have them do for the next three years of school, lol! Any ideas?


End file.
